While You’re Busy Arguing About Thirst Traps, We’re Fighting for Our Rights
Every Time a Woman Owns Her Desire, a Man Calls It Degeneracy—and a Politician Passes a Law.
🔥 The Conflict of Desire and Identity
The internet’s latest meltdown is over Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover—because nothing sends the masses into a moral tailspin faster than a woman who stages her submission and keeps eye contact while doing it.
She’s on all fours. Hair in a man’s hand. She’s looking straight at the camera, not flinching. The power play is obvious—but so is the agency. It's not a candid slip into sex appeal. It’s a middle finger wrapped in lipstick and velvet. And the world is foaming over it.
Once again, we’re dragged into the endless hell-loop of discourse: Is it too sexy? Is it feminist? Is it empowerment or a kink-drenched thirst trap for the male gaze?
We’ve done this dance so many times that it should be cardio by now
Because behind every screechy hot take and faux-feminist outrage is a truth no one wants to touch:
It is terrifying to be a woman who wants.
Wants attention. Wants pleasure. Wants love without submission. Safety without erasure. A man who pins her wrists to the mattress one night and holds her hand through her dentist appointment the next. Someone who fucks like a god and folds the laundry with care. Who sees your strength and still calls you baby.
But wanting—openly, unapologetically—puts a target on your back. Desire is only allowed when it's dressed up as service. Be sexy, but not for yourself. Be desirable, but not too confident about it. Be wanted, not wanting.
I write for the women who are done with that game. I write for the complicated ones. The messy ones. The women who want to be worshipped and wrecked and still get that promotion.
I am one of them.
And I know the minefield we walk every time we dare to ask for more.
Growing Up Female (and Other Survival Skills)
Let’s not pretend this is a universal story—but it’s not exactly rare either.
I grew up bi in a conservative, religious community where sex was either a sin or a scandal—never something you talked about unless someone was being punished for it or was trying to have a child. My family dropped comments like landmines:
Desire is dangerous. Wanting is sin. Purity is your value.
Translation? Your body is a liability. And your job is to keep it under control.
Sex ed? Please. Abstinence was the only “curriculum,” and no one taught us how to name what we felt when the hormones showed up with a megaphone. (Joke’s on them as I rebelled hard the moment I grew a spine.)
In that world, I learned the survival script early.
“I have a boyfriend” was safer than “I’m not interested.”
Smiling was mandatory.
Politeness was armour.
And I became fluent in danger management before I could drive:
How drunk is he? How dark is this alley? How fast can I walk without looking scared?
I’ve been groped on the bus after school by grown-ass men who knew they’d get away with it. And they did.
I was groomed at fourteen by a guy in his twenties—older, “charming,” with the kind of confidence that preys on inexperience. I didn’t know the rules because no one told me there were rules. I was flattered he liked me.
The shame didn’t come from what happened. It came after—planted like rot, watered by gossip.
It took years to uncage my body from that shame. Years to believe that sex wasn’t inherently dangerous. That my pleasure didn’t require justification, or a priest. That being wanted didn’t mean I was broken.
It took a partner who saw me, respected me, and yes—fucking adored me—to help me unlearn the damage.
And a whole damn bookshelf of romance novels. Especially the more explicit ones.
Because sometimes, the only way to find your way back to yourself… is through a fantasy that finally lets you speak without shame.
Femme Identity & the “Not Like Other Girls” Lie
Let’s get something straight:
I am like other girls. And I say that with pride.
I love pumpkin spice lattes. I own fuzzy socks with stupid little animals on them. I will cry to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” one day and fantasise about morally grey hacker boyfriends with knife kinks the next.
I wear perfume that smells like sugar and sin. I read romance novels with pink covers and violence. I contain multitudes—and half of them have lip gloss.
I am not a contradiction. I am a fully integrated chaos engine built from softness, spite, and internet fandom.
But somewhere along the way, being “like other girls” became an insult.
And being “not like other girls” became a currency.
The ultimate pick-me flex.
The socially acceptable way to say, “I’m better than them.”
It’s a scam. A shiny little trap designed to divide us before we ever learn to stand together.
Because when you say “not like other girls,” you’re saying:
“I’m not emotional like them.”
“I’m not dramatic like them.”
“I’m not slutty, basic, girly, high-maintenance like them.”
You think you’re escaping the cage, but all you’re doing is choosing a different one—and bolting the door behind you.
I did it too, once. Mocked the popular girls. Cringed at the pink. Felt superior for liking “real books” instead of romance, like some literary goddamn unicorn. It felt powerful, right up until I realised I’d been weaponising internalised misogyny and calling it personality.
The truth? You’re not special because you reject other women. You’re just useful to the people who profit from keeping us divided.
This “cool girl” act—where you love football, pick at your fries but never finish them, and never appear needy—is just another way to make yourself palatable to men who fear complex women. It’s just patriarchy in skinny jeans and pristine eyeliner.
So let me like my shit. Let me wear sparkles. Let me want things that are cute, emotional, feminine, and mainstream. Let me love fanfiction and bubble baths and morally depraved fictional men. Let me be basic. Let me be weird. Let me be both before breakfast.
None of it diminishes me. None of it makes me less than.
Being “like other girls” is not a flaw—it’s a legacy.
And frankly? Other girls are fucking incredible.
And let’s not pretend this flattening only happens in straight culture.
Femme identity catches heat in queer spaces too—often from people who should know better.
Wear lipstick and heels? Too performative.
Love traditionally “girly” things? Must be doing it for the male gaze.
Show softness, romanticism, domesticity? Must be trying to cosplay heteronormativity.
Apparently, if you’re not signalling your queerness with flannel, a shaved head, and an acoustic guitar, you’re doing it wrong.
Spoiler alert: queerness doesn’t come with a uniform.
Femininity isn’t submission—it’s style. It’s strategy. It’s survival. And sometimes it’s just what makes you feel like you.
Even among women, there are layers. Geological strata of identity, power, trauma, aesthetics, and language. Cultural sediment built up over generations of being told what kind of woman is “real,” “valid,” “feminist,” “desirable,” “gay enough,” “smart enough,” “serious enough.”
It’s exhausting.
And it’s a lie.
You want to paint your nails and flirt with girls while quoting Kafka? Do it.
You want to read smut and go to drag shows and cry during Grey’s Anatomy? Do it.
You want to be femme, but not soft? Femme and soft but not submissive? Femme and submissive but not invisible?
Do. It.
There is no wrong way to be a woman. There is no wrong way to be queer. There is no wrong way to be you—unless you spend your whole life contorting yourself just to be palatable to people who were never going to love you anyway.
Sex, Agency & Public Perception
Sex is where society draws its dumbest, deepest, most judgmental battle lines—and still somehow manages to trip over them.
Own your sexuality? Slut.
Don’t show enough skin? Frigid.
Be too forward? Desperate.
Too reserved? Uptight.
You’re either asking for it or withholding it—but either way, it’s your fault.
You can’t win. So maybe the trick is to stop playing by their rules.
Here’s what actually matters: agency. Not aesthetics. Not performance. Not whether it makes the neighbours uncomfortable. Choice. That’s the whole damn point.
A woman dancing in lingerie on TikTok isn’t a puppet. She might be a strategist. A woman on OnlyFans? Might be an entrepreneur with a ring light and better income than your dentist. Or maybe she’s just horny and vibing with herself at golden hour. Either way: valid.
But God forbid a woman enjoys being seen and profits from it.
And before anyone starts throwing the “sex work is destroying society” tantrum, let’s get real:
Sex workers—especially digital creators—are holding up significant chunks of the internet economy.
OnlyFans reported over $5.6 billion in revenue in 2022. That’s not a typo. That’s billion with a B. And guess who earned the majority of that money? Women. Women who monetised their own image, set their own boundaries, and built entire financial empires in the same space where most people scroll for free.
Sex work isn’t shameful, it’s threatening because it disrupts the system. It says: “You don’t own my body. I do. And I’m charging for access.”
And still, every time, it’s the women who get dragged.
We demonise the offering, but not the demand.
We blame the woman posting content, not the thousands of men in the comments section with usernames like BigDaddy69 and the audacity of a Roman emperor.
They’re not the problem. She is.
We punish visibility, never consumption.
And let’s not pretend this is new. From burlesque to webcam performers to bestselling romance authors writing toe-curling erotica under pen names, women have always used desire as currency when the world refused to pay them anything else.
Take Sabrina Carpenter. Her latest “controversy” isn’t about the sexiness of her image—it’s about the audacity of her control. If the same image were used in a car ad designed for men, we’d call it edgy branding. But because she staged it, owns it, and set it to her own soundtrack?
Now it’s a scandal.
Taylor Swift’s spent two decades being judged on a scale that doesn’t exist for men. Too emotional. Too cold. Too public. Too private. She was bitter when she cried, jealous when she loved, and arrogant when she succeeded. Even finding happiness was “too much.” They wanted her to win quietly. Or better yet, not at all.
Women in media are walking PR tightropes with knives at their throats.
And fictional women? Somehow, they have it even worse.
She’s too competent? Mary Sue.
Too short? Overdone.
Too tall? Unrealistic.
Too sexual? Slutty fantasy.
Too pure? Pick-me.
A female hockey player who can bodycheck a dude? “Come on, that would never happen.”
But a guy with a tragic backstory who murders thirty people and still gets the girl? Five stars. Would swoon again.
And don’t get me started on how Black Widow saved the world and still couldn’t get her own merch while Iron Man was getting Funko Pops for breathing.
The rules are fake. The double standards are exhausting. And none of this has ever been about morality—it’s about control.
Who gets to be seen?
Who gets to want?
Who gets to exist without apology?
Media Hypocrisy & Double Standards
Let’s talk about hypocrisy. Real, industrial-strength, institutionally backed hypocrisy.
We glorify violence on screen like it’s a goddamn sacrament.
Reacher breaks a man’s neck in a diner and gets a slow-mo hero shot.
John Wick slaughters entire armies in designer suits, and we call it cinematic excellence. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Keanu and the whole John Wick franchise!)
But let a woman write a book with three sex scenes, and suddenly it’s “filth.”
“Lowbrow.”
“Corrupting the youth.”
Because nothing says cultural decay like a woman climaxing on page 216.
No one calls a murder mystery a “clean read.”
But a romance without sex? That’s clean.
And one with consensual kink? Dirty.
Spoiler alert: it’s not about content. It’s about control.
The culture isn’t afraid of what we’re writing.
It’s afraid we’re writing it for ourselves.
You can show a woman get stabbed, beaten, or trafficked on prime-time television and no one bats an eye. But show her taking control of her desire—owning it, speaking it, enjoying it?
That’s when the morality police show up, clutching their pearls and their algorithm updates.
Meanwhile, tech bros running streaming platforms are making millions off that exact content. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube—platforms that depend on creators selling sex appeal to boost engagement—will shadowban you for showing too much skin, even while their ad revenue skyrockets off your reach.
It’s the same with romance novels. Spicy authors build massive followings, create careers, literally revive the publishing industry’s lungs post-COVID, and still get called “mommy porn” and “not real literature.”
Meanwhile, male authors describe a woman’s breasts as “gravity-defying orbs” and get Booker nominations.
We live in a system that profits off the things it publicly condemns.
That sells sexualized images while scolding women for making money off their own.
It’s not purity. It’s power.
It’s not decency. It’s jealousy—that women dare to profit, to create, to own desire without asking for permission.
Kink ≠ Brokenness
Let’s say it louder for the people at the back—because apparently it still hasn’t sunk in:
Enjoying kink does not mean you’re broken.
I write dominant men who whisper filthy things and praise you like a goddess in the same breath.
I write women who want to be taken, wrecked, worshipped—and come out of it grinning.
And I write it because it’s real. It’s wanted. And most of all, it’s consensual.
Kink isn’t a trauma response.
It isn’t a diagnosis.
It’s a language.
And here’s the thing—they think kink is about pain. It’s not. It’s about power.
About choosing what gets handed over and what stays yours.
About trust deep enough that you can say, “Take me apart—but only the way I like.”
You know what requires more communication, more emotional intelligence, more honesty than most “normal” relationships?
A healthy D/s dynamic.
CNC, impact play, degradation, praise, obedience, denial—it’s all built on layers of consent so explicit it would make most vanilla couples burst into flames.
It’s not brokenness.
It’s precision.
Let women want what they want. Let them crave rough hands and soft aftercare. Let them ask to be ruined with kindness and cruelty in equal measure.
Because that desire? It’s not dangerous.
It’s not disgusting.
It’s not a diagnosis.
It’s just another way we take our power back—one fantasy at a time.
And if you’re curious—curious enough to explore kink safely, sanely, and without scarring yourself or someone else?
There are outstanding educators out there who haven't let patience and clarity go extinct.
They teach with kindness. With boundaries. With nuance.
They treat BDSM as what it is: a practice. A craft. A partnership. Not some trauma-fueled chaos fantasy.
And for the love of lube, do not take your cues from Fifty Shades of Grey. That is a fictional billionaire trauma romance, not a BDSM starter kit.
It’s as realistic as learning to drive by watching Fast and Furious.
If your safe word is “family,” you’re doing it wrong.
Find real voices. Find mentors who lead with empathy and safety. Kink is too powerful to be learned from horny book blurbs and car crashes.
Rewriting Gender Roles (Yes, Even for the “Not All Men” Ones)
Let’s flip the script—because the one we were handed? Garbage fire. Gender roles weren’t made for balance. They were made for control and complacency. Designed to make everyone silently miserable. And we’re done with that.
My husband is the heart of our home. He cooks. He shops. He knows exactly how I take my coffee depending on my mood, the weather, and my hormone cycle.
I’m the higher earner. I manage our finances. I plot our life like a military strategist with caffeine jitters. I forget what’s in the fridge, but I’ll have a five-year plan ready by lunch.
He washes my bras. I negotiate contracts. He soothes. I push him outside his comfort zone. We didn’t choose that dynamic to be cute—we chose it because it works for us.
And here’s the thing: it works because we let go of “supposed to.”
He’s no less of a man for caring. I’m no less of a woman for leading. No one had to shrink to fit a mold.
But let’s not pretend men came out of this culture unscathed.
They’re told that love equals control, and vulnerability equals weakness. That their only value lies in providing and protecting, while silently swallowing their own needs.
They’re not raised to process emotion; they’re taught to outsource it to the women in their lives.
They’re handed a script too: “Be strong. Be stoic. Be the rock.”
So they break in private. Or explode in public. Or drag women down with them, calling it love.
This isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card for shitty behavior.
It’s a callout: patriarchy screws men too.
It strips them of tenderness. It punishes softness. It sells them power while robbing them of peace.
So yeah. Rewriting gender roles isn’t just feminism. It’s damage control for everyone.
I grew up with Barbies and a battery-powered Ferrari. You know what that made me?
A kid with range.
Let people be who they are without colour-coded instructions, genital-based job descriptions, or TikTok therapists selling masculinity like it's protein powder with a side of misogyny.
Burn the script. Write a better one.
Autonomy & Acceptance (For All Genders)
You want to wear an oversized hoodie and never shave again?
Do it.
You want to strut through life in a micro mini and heels so high they give physics anxiety?
Own it. Make the pavement your runway.
Femininity isn’t weakness. Masculinity isn’t cruelty. Androgyny isn’t confusion.
All of it is allowed.
All of it is yours—if you want it.
This isn’t just about women.
It’s about everyone who’s ever been punished for being “too much” or “not enough” of whatever box they were shoved into at birth.
Trans people are punished not for being confusing, but for being free.
For refusing to stay in the binary cages that make mediocre people feel comfortable.
Nonbinary folks get erased not because they’re vague, but because they’re inconvenient. They challenge the idea that identity is fixed, tidy, and easy to sort. And society hates anything it can’t label, monetise, or sedate.
We tell everyone they can “be themselves,” then crucify them for it the moment they do.
Too soft? Weak.
Too hard? Aggressive.
Too femme? Attention-seeking.
Too masc? Try-hard.
Too visibly queer? Threat.
Too invisible? Liar.
What we actually mean is: Be whoever you want, as long as it doesn’t make us uncomfortable.
But here’s the thing: your existence isn’t a PR campaign.
You don’t owe the world a digestible version of yourself.
Let people be weird. Let them be plain. Let them be loud, messy, soft, sharp, inconsistent, euphoric, healing, chaotic.
Let them take up space.
Because the more we strip away shame, the more we see the truth:
There is no “right” way to be human.
And the moment we stop policing each other’s bodies, desires, and identities?
That’s the moment we all finally get free.
💥 What Fucking Matters
We’ve spent enough time gnawing on the edges of the empowerment debate—arguing over eyeliner and cleavage, pearl-clutching over TikTok trends, asking whether a woman’s confidence is authentic or merely convenient for male fantasy.
All of it? White noise.
All of it is designed to keep us distracted while our rights erode, one headline at a time.
So let’s strip away the fluff and speak as if we were talking over a drink.
What really fucking matters is this:
The right to access abortion, contraception, and reproductive care without shame, delay, or a panel of men deciding our fate.
The right to safety—in our homes, at our jobs, on the street, online, and in our own beds.
The right to earn a living without a pay gap or a power imbalance that demands our silence in exchange for opportunity.
The right to healthcare that listens, believes, and treats—not dismisses, doubts, and charges you $600 to be told you’re “probably just stressed.”
The right to exist in public without needing to shrink, apologise, or explain your existence like it’s some performance review.
This isn’t about whether you wear a bodysuit or a hoodie, whether you’re celibate or kinky, whether you read literary fiction or fan-written filth.
This is about agency.
About choice.
About the simple, radical right to define yourself on your damn terms.
You deserve to take up space without fear.
To chase joy without justification.
To feel pleasure without permission.
So go ahead. Read the smut. Or don’t.
Wear the heels. Or the sneakers.
Say yes. Say no. Say not yet, not like that, not for you.
Do it loudly. Do it quietly. Do it complicated.
But whatever you do, do it for you.
Own your body.
Own your joy.
Own your contradictions, your softness, your rage, your fire, your quiet.
You are allowed to be all of it.
And in the words of Saint Ru, patron of high heels and high standards:
“Unless they paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind.”